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September 01, 2004

Living Off-Grid

Living off-grid can be a challenge. When energy and supplies no longer arrive through installed infrastructure, they must be collected and stored locally, or done without. Today this is done with lead-acid batteries, expensive water-handling systems, and so on. All these systems have limited capacities. Conversely, living on-grid creates a distance between production and consumption that makes it easy to ignore the implications of excessive resource usage. Molecular manufacturing can make off-grid living more practical, with clean local production and easy managing of local resources.

For this essay, I will assume a molecular manufacturing technology based on mechanosynthesis of carbon lattice. A bio-inspired nanotechnology would share many of the same advantages. Carbon lattice (including diamond) is about 100 times as strong as steel per volume, and carbon is one-sixth as dense. This implies that a structure made of carbon would weigh at most 1% of the weight of a steel structure. This is important for several reasons, including cost and portability. However, in most things made of steel, much of the material is resisting compression, which requires far more bulk than resisting the same amount of tension. (It's easier to crumple a steel bar than to pull it apart.) When construction in fine detail doesn't cost any extra, it's possible to convert compressive stress to tensile stress by using trusses or pressurized tanks. So it'll often be safe to divide current product weight by 1,000. The cost of molecular-manufactured carbon lattice might be $20 per kg ($10 per pound) at today's electricity prices, and drop rapidly as nanofactories are improved and nano-manufactured solar cells are deployed. This makes it very competitive with steel as a structural material.

A two or three order of magnitude improvement in material properties, and a six order of magnitude improvement in cost per feature and compactness of motors and computers, allows the design of completely new kinds of products. For example, a large tent or a small inflatable boat may weigh 10 kilograms. But building with advanced materials, this is equal to 1,000 or even 10,000 kilograms: a house or a yacht. Likewise, a small airplane or seaplane might weigh 1,000 kg today. A 10 kg full-sized collapsible airplane is not implausible; today's hang gliders weigh only 30-40 kg, and they're built out of aluminum and nylon. Such an airplane would be easy to store and cheap to build, and could of course be powered by solar-generated fuel.

Today, equipment and structures must be maintained and their surfaces protected. This generates a lot of waste and uses a lot of paint and labor. But, as the saying goes, diamonds are forever. This is because in a diamond all the atoms are strongly bonded to each other, and oxygen (even with the help of salt) can't pull one loose to start a chemical reaction. Ultraviolet light can be blocked by a thin surface coating molecularly bonded to the structure during construction. So diamondoid structures would require no maintenance to prevent corrosion. Also, due to the strongly bonded surfaces, it appears that nanoscale machines will be immune to ordinary wear. A machine could be designed to run without maintenance for a century.

Can molecular manufacturing build all the needed equipment? It appears so; carbon is an extremely versatile atom. It can be a conductor, semiconductor, or insulator; opaque or transparent; it can make inorganic (and indigestible) substances like diamond and graphite, but with a few other readily available atoms, it can make incredibly complex and diverse organic chemicals. And don't forget that a complete self-contained molecular manufacturing system can be quite small. So any needed equipment or products could be made on the spot, out of chemicals readily available from the local environment. A self-contained factory sufficient to supply a family could be the size of a microwave oven. When a product is no longer wanted, it can be burned cleanly, being made entirely of light atoms. It is worth noting that extraction of rare minerals from ecologically or politically sensitive areas would become largely unnecessary.

Power collection and storage would require a lot fewer resources. A solar cell only has to be a few microns thick. Lightweight expandable or inflatable structures would make installation easy and potentially temporary. Energy could be stored as hydrogen. The solar cells and the storage equipment could be built by the on-site nanofactory. The same goes for solar water distillers, and tanks and greenhouses for growing fish, seaweed, algae, or hydroponic gardening. Water can also be purified electrically and recovered from greenhouse air, and direct chemical food production using cheap microfluidics will probably be an early post-nanofactory development. With food, fuel, and equipment all available locally, there would be very little need to ship supplies from centralized production facilities, and water use per person could be much less than with open-air agriculture and today's problems with handling wastewater.

The developed nations today have a massive and probably unsustainable ecological footprint. Because production is so decentralized, it is hard to observe the impact of consumer choices. And because only a few areas of land are convenient for transportation or ideal for agriculture, unhealthy patterns of land use have developed. Economies of scale encourage large infrastructures. But nano-built equipment benefits from other economies, so off-site production and distribution will become less efficient than local productivity. Someone living off-grid will be able literally to see their own ecological footprint, simply by looking at the land area they have covered with solar cells and greenhouses. Cheap sensors will allow monitoring of any unintentional pollution—though there will be fewer pollution sources with clean manufacturing of maintenance-free products.

Cheap high-bandwidth communication without wires would require a new infrastructure, but it would not be hard to build one. Simply sending up small airplanes with wireless networking equipment would allow wireless communication for hundreds of miles.

Incentive for theft might decrease, since people could more quickly and easily build what they want for themselves rather than stealing other people's homemade goods.

Molecular manufacturing should make it very easy to disconnect from today's industrial grid. Even with relatively primitive (early) molecular manufacturing, people could have far better quality of life off-grid than in today's slums, while doing significantly less ecological damage. Areas that are difficult to live in today could become viable living space. Although this would increase the spread of humans over the globe, it would reduce the use of intensive agriculture, centralized energy production, and transportation; the ecological tradeoffs appear favorable. (With careful monitoring of waste streams, this argument may even apply to ocean living.)

Everything written here also could apply to displaced persons. Instead of refugee camps where barely adequate supplies are delivered from outside and crowding leads to increased health problems, relatively small amounts of land would allow each family (or larger social group) to be self-sufficient. This would not mitigate the tragedy of losing their homes, but would avoid compounding the tragedy by imposing the substandard or even life-threatening living conditions of today's refugee camps.

Of course, this essay has only considered the technical aspects of off-grid living. The practical feasibility depends on a variety of social and political issues. Many people enjoy living close to neighbors. Various commercial interests may not welcome the prospect of people withdrawing from the current consumer lifestyle. Owners of nanofactory technology may charge licensing fees too high to permit disconnection from the money system. Some environmental groups may be unwilling to see large-scale settlement of new land areas or the ocean, even if the overall ecological tradeoff were positive. But the possibility of self-sufficient off-grid living would take some destructive pressure off of a variety of overpopulated and over-consuming societies. Although it is not a perfect alternative, it appears to be preferable in many instances to today's ways of living and using resources.

Comments

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Cris, this is a fine article and I look forward to fulfilling this prophecy of living off the grid. As I personally intend to move to space post MM I would be interested in yours or anyone's opinion as to the impact artificial intelligence will have in designing of new and useful products. As I will be moving into space alone taking with me only what I required to survive and a few computers for company. My current strategy is to wait for the space elevator to be deployed and a relatively complex form of MM. I will then move a quantity of feedstock into space and a reasonable size ship perhaps consisting of four or five chambers and a handful of replicators of varying size. One of the key elements I am counting on in this strategy is the use of artificial intelligence to create useful items as I will need many things in space. My current arguments is an old argument that necessity is the mother of invention. As I will be in space living 24- 7 I will recognize the need for products I otherwise would not have anticipated here on earth. And will utilize the assembler's/replicators to produce set products this part of the equation is clear-cut the part that is unclear is the design of the products. I am hopeful that a advanced or reasonably advanced artificial intelligence design system will be able to identify a problem plan a solution and the corresponding product for the assembler's to produce can then be made. Once again I will have already relocated to space so I will be confronting these problems that otherwise would have been difficult to predict.

I also perceive a situation where I will be moving to another location away from earth. The asteroid belt is a obvious choice but for its distance from the sun. On another point does anyone foresee a restriction in place where individuals are not allowed to move asteroids from the outer systems to the intersystem due to the threat of a possible earth impact scenario ? Retrieving a asteroid of reasonable size and converting said asteroid to a living environment seems reasonable. As too defense once again perhaps the artificial intelligence could design a "adequate" defense. I do favor the idea of a utility fog defense combined with one or two other levels. A general question can the utility fog contain solar panels and given the size of a very small foglet would the solar panels produce enough energy to allow the unit to function. Also if the cloud covers and extends outward from the home asteroid some distance perhaps a few miles does this restrict the amount of energy in the form of sunlight to the asteroid surface ?

As Brett says, there is going to be some formula to restrict the masses that can be homesteaded. We don't want one person claiming an entire planet or major moon, and probably not even a major asteroid such as Ceres. Smaller asteroids, up to the size of a mountain, I would imagine, will be up for grabs. And of course, outside the solar system, the restrictions would dissipate rapidly. If you go far enough, no one will object if you want to turn an entire solar system into your own private paradise.

You may have a complete self-contained molecular manufacturing system, but the design specs you'd load into it to construct anything at all will be so tied up by intellectual property rights that you will still need to be employed in order to earn money to license them. And poor countries will simply not have the cash to pay; just think how cheap it is now to produce generic drugs, but how poorer nations can't afford them because of the power of US companies with their IP being used to keep prices high.

And theft will be even more widespread as people "pirate" designs, or create free versions that are already patented. The increasing criminalisation of creativity, combined with the natural human tendancies for sharing and oppurtunism will, with the power of nanotech applied to surveliance and enforcement, combine to make criminals of us all.

I agree that IP fees could create high levels of artificial scarcity. This could go several ways. Black market could lead to change of policy. Or black market could lead to ongoing struggle; Prohibition lasted 13 years, and the War on Drugs is onging.

Or we could have massive oppressive surveillance sufficient to prevent a black market. Don't think it's impossible, when you can build an airborne camera platform with supercomputer and wireless network for under a dollar. It would just be very, very horrible.

Yes, a one-person inflatable plane, weighing about 200 pounds (minus fuel and pilot), was built by Goodyear in 1956. It could be inflated in 5 minutes. Cruise speed was 60 MPH, and it could fly for 6.5 hours. A two-person version was also built.

This implies that a molecular manufactured version could weigh about 2 pounds--an order of magnitude less than what I estimated.

An inflatoplane would, sure. Note the low cruise and top speeds. But with better materials and improved shape, you could probably make a design with higher speed and wing loading that would be less susceptible to air conditions. Don't forget, if it's inflatable and actuators are free and featherweight, you can morph it. A big wing for takeoff and landing, a small wing for cruising and bad air. And if you get Arizona-quality air, where 800 FPM down goes all the way to the ground and the wind can switch 30 MPH in three seconds from thermals--and you can't find a landing strip? Then turn the plane into a giant airbag and crash-land safely.

(Yes, I'm a hang glider pilot, and yes, I stopped flying in Arizona after hearing too many stories.)